Shanghai is establishing a smart computing capability industry zone in the Lingang Special Area, with industry output of over 10 billion yuan (US$1.41 billion) by 2025, city officials said on Friday.
The new computing capabilities, mainly AI capabilities, will meet surging demands fueled by ChatGPT and similar generative AI features. Several open and shared AI centers and alliances are founded, which offers capabilities to all organizations including small and medium-sized enterprises or SMEs, industry officials said the 2023 Lingang Intelligent Computing Conference held in Shanghai on Friday.
By 2025, the total computing capacity of the Lingang zone will hit 5EFLOPS (floating point operations per second), with AI capacities for 80 percent. The computing capacity industry output will hit over 10 billion yuan by 2025, with 100 related companies and organizations and over 5,000 talent in the zone, officials told the conference.
Shanghai is constructing a citywide computing capacity network, with public computing network platforms and alliances, meeting the demands of researchers and SMEs. The AI computing resources will become "a public service like electricity and water today", said Tang Wenkan, deputy director of the Shanghai Commission of Economy and Informatization.
An AI computing industry alliance is found in Lingang on Friday.
The Lingang Special Area Intelligent Computing Alliance was founded during the conference, with giants like HK-listed SenseTime.
"SenseTime is dedicated to developing premium AGI infrastructure, constantly improving the iteration speed and capabilities of large models to unlock the vast potential of AGI," said Xu Li, chairman and CEO of SenseTime.
As of May this year, the company's SenseCore has served over 40 core clients, including more than 10 clients for large models, covering cutting-edge fields intelligent driving, biopharmaceuticals, smart business and academia
SenseTime has invested heavily to constructed an Artificial Intelligence Data Center (AIDC) in Lingang. Open in 2022, AIDC is expected to significantly boost the capabilities of SenseTime's AI infrastructure and capabilities and accelerate AI industrialization in different sectors, and create a vibrant AI ecosystem.
With the popularity use of ChatGPT and other AI applications, it's a race for all organizations to secure data and AI computing capabilities globally and in China.
Lingang has its advantages in developing AI computing network, with huge volumes of industrial data and surging demands from integrated circuit, advanced manufacture and intelligent car firms in the zone. It will boost AI algorithms' usage in more industries and create commercial value quickly, Tang added.
Currently Shanghai has announced 16 new city-level data centers, including SenseTime's AIDC in Lingang and centers constructed by China Unicom and China Telecom's local branches.